The Political Effects of China’s Belt and Road Initiative: Context, Competition, and Infrastructure Politics
Written by
Wrenn Yennie Lindgren
Senior Research Fellow
Ole Jacob Sending
Research Professor, Head of Center for Geopolitics
Morten Skumsrud Andersen
Senior Research Fellow
Ed.
Summary:
In this special issue, the authors identify three contextual dimensions that are particularly important for understanding the political effects of the Belt Road Initiative (BRI).
First, bilateral relations and domestic politics: how a country’s history of interactions with China, and the particularities of its domestic politics, affects how the BRI is received, negotiated, and politicized.
Second, the politics of international goods substitution: the BRI does not operate in a vacuum but in an ecology of competing providers of infrastructures and related international goods. The effects of any given investment will depend on what alternatives are available to recipient states.
Third, symbolic and ideational contexts. Beyond its material dimensions, the BRI can function as an identity or status marker—for China, for recipient states, and for adversaries—in ways that may carry independent political consequences.
Engaging with these three contextual dimensions, the authors argue, is key to moving beyond abstraction or insulation, and toward a fuller picture of the political effects of the BRI.
The contributions to this special issue all investigate how these contextual dimensions of the BRI condition its political effects across regions and issue areas. Thereby, they seek to bridge the gap between macro-level accounts of China’s rise, and the more fine-grained studies of BRI projects. In this introduction, the authors first review the evolution of research on the BRI before addressing these three contextual dimensions in more detail and how they relate to the contributions comprising the special issue.
First, bilateral relations and domestic politics: how a country’s history of interactions with China, and the particularities of its domestic politics, affects how the BRI is received, negotiated, and politicized.
Second, the politics of international goods substitution: the BRI does not operate in a vacuum but in an ecology of competing providers of infrastructures and related international goods. The effects of any given investment will depend on what alternatives are available to recipient states.
Third, symbolic and ideational contexts. Beyond its material dimensions, the BRI can function as an identity or status marker—for China, for recipient states, and for adversaries—in ways that may carry independent political consequences.
Engaging with these three contextual dimensions, the authors argue, is key to moving beyond abstraction or insulation, and toward a fuller picture of the political effects of the BRI.
The contributions to this special issue all investigate how these contextual dimensions of the BRI condition its political effects across regions and issue areas. Thereby, they seek to bridge the gap between macro-level accounts of China’s rise, and the more fine-grained studies of BRI projects. In this introduction, the authors first review the evolution of research on the BRI before addressing these three contextual dimensions in more detail and how they relate to the contributions comprising the special issue.
- Published year: 2026
- Full version: Download th article here (open access)
- Publisher: Oxford University Press
- Page count: 7
- Language: English
- Volume: 6
- Booklet: 3
- Journal: Global Studies Quarterly